TIX wins MGP

The 2022 edition of Norway’s national final Melodi Grand Prix is starting to shape up. MGP production manager — and Norway’s Head of Delegation — Stig Karlsen has shared some details about this season’s show with Norwegian fans.

Recently Stig Karlsen made his usual appearance to OGAE Norway’s traditional autumn meeting. There he shared with Norway’s Eurovision fans some details about the next edition of Melodi Grand Prix. Norwegian Eurovision blog escNorge has summarised Karlsen’s comments.

Melodi Grand Prix 2022 will involve five semi-finals and the grand final. The show will begin on 15 January 2022, with the grand final scheduled for 19 February.

Karlsen confirmed that all MGP 2022 shows will be filmed at H3 Arena in Fornebu, just outside Oslo. H3 is a medium size event hall, previously used for music television shows such as Stjernekamp and Norwegian Idol. This is the same venue that was used to host the heats for MGP 2020 and all shows for MGP 2021.

This means that pandemic precautions are still in place and the show won’t be returning to a large arena for 2022. H3 is not a a huge venue, with a maximum audience capacity of 1200. However, Karlsen assured fans that after the 2021 being held without a live audience, the 2022 show will have space for a live audience.

Changes to Norway’s Melodi Grand Prix 2022

The MGP boss also confirmed that there will be some changes to the show format for 2022. While nothing has been confirmed yet, Karlsen did give strong suggestions of what form the show will end up taking.

The show may include some sort of jury to help replicate the voting structure of Eurovision. In recent years, MGP has only used a Norwegian televote, with the results presented in regional groups.

There may also be other changes to the voting system. Karlsen is considering ways to make the voting reveal as exciting as possible — but he’s also considering way to ensure the winner is someone who can deliver visually, in the pop charts, as well as in MGP.

Karlsen is also looking at a new way of launching the competing songs. In 2020 and 2021 the songs were revealed days before each semi-final. Different formats are being considered for 2022.

Karlsen won’t reveal anything about the competing songs or artists. However escNorge has a little insider information on the subject. They say there are fewer entries from Swedish and other foreign songwriters this year. They say that around 10 to 15 songs and artists are ready, and the other 10 or so will be ready in coming weeks.

escNorge also described a “funny and catchy” song that is a potential for MPG. While the song doesn’t have an associated artist yet, the blog intriguingly says that it “will be able to create a lot of attention and […] interesting conversations in MGP environments around Europe.”

What do you think? What changes would you like to see made to Melodi Grand Prix? Who would you like to see compete in Norway’s national final? Tell us your thoughts below!

Read more Norway Eurovision news here

17 Comments
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DCNXavier
DCNXavier
2 years ago

“escNorge also described a “funny and catchy” song that is a potential for MPG. While the song doesn’t have an associated artist yet, the blog intriguingly says that it “will be able to create a lot of attention and […] interesting conversations in MGP environments around Europe.” So Scandilove 2.0?

Erik
Erik
2 years ago

Vet ikke det jag

Ignonito
Ignonito
2 years ago

I know this is not Norway but #MakeSenhitHostESC, best audition ever.

Alex
Alex
2 years ago

I don’t know what to think about the jury if I’m honest.
I need to see how it will turn out with the rounds and everything.
I really liked last year 4 superfinal acts but I understand jury might help less known acts. At the same time big televote magnets entries like Spirit in the Sky might lose againts something like The Bubble.

Denis
Denis
2 years ago

Good that they will re-introduce jury. I hope that they will go all the way with it. Having a jury vote all the way and not just for one round. Doing one round like that is pointless and cheating.

Thanos
Thanos
2 years ago

Reintroducing the jury is a good idea since the pure televote system often just gives an unfair advantage to popular artists (like what happened with TIX this year). Let’s see how many changes will occur ultimately. It’s nice to see that they are already at a very good stage with their planning!

BadWoolfGirl
BadWoolfGirl
2 years ago
Reply to  Thanos

It’s good to have some balance to counteract the poor tendencies of both Jury and televote. Let’s hope they don’t screw each other over.

Thanos
Thanos
2 years ago
Reply to  BadWoolfGirl

Yes. The problem with the juries is that they tend to bury songs that are creative and outside of the radio-friendly pop mold. Nevertheless they do help qualitative entries and strong vocalists and they balance some poor televoting tendencies like you said. So my ideal system (both for MGP and ultimately for ESC) would be a 75% televote to 25% jury vote. Will never happen really but just wanted to point it out lol.

Jofty
Jofty
2 years ago
Reply to  Thanos

But we need popular artists to keep the competition alive. TIX was the best fit for Norway last year and I hope this suggestion is not to help the likes of KEiiNO in via the back door. Much as I liked Switzerland (jury winner) this would have nowhere near as much international aspect as the Italian winner. Intervention by the “jury” messed up Malta’s qualification prospects on more than one occasion.

Thanos
Thanos
2 years ago
Reply to  Jofty

Agree with you on some things but not on others. Italy were my winners this year and Finland and Ukraine were two songs I loved a lot so I was over moon when I saw how great the Televoting results at ESC were! On the other hand though as far as MGP is concerned, TIX wasn’t their best option. There were many other songs that deserved to win way more. Keiino were my winners there yes (also you can’t really call them jury bait since they are huge Televoting magnets) but other songs were also better than TIX’s song. He… Read more »

Last edited 2 years ago by Thanos
Esc addict
Esc addict
2 years ago

Promising! “Jury to help replicate the voting structure of Eurovision” this sounds good to my ears, interested to see what does it mean for them and how they will do that.

Luc
Luc
2 years ago

The new changes sound exciting ngl

Ethan1994
Ethan1994
2 years ago

Honestly, if they reintroduce a jury, they should do it Melfest style, and definitely not like how they did it from 2017-2019. Having an international jury vote for just one round of voting, and then going all televote for the rest is just such a cop-out.

Last edited 2 years ago by Ethan1994
BadWoolfGirl
BadWoolfGirl
2 years ago
Reply to  Ethan1994

By Melfest style you mean do it by demographic?

Denis
Denis
2 years ago
Reply to  BadWoolfGirl

No, the juries are not by demographic, that is only for televotes. I think he means use them 50- 50. Not just in the first round like they used to.

Last edited 2 years ago by Denis
Ethan1994
Ethan1994
2 years ago
Reply to  Denis

Yep, that’s exactly what I mean.

Ukraine stan
Ukraine stan
2 years ago

I’d like them to renew the heats and get rid of those awful duels. They were horrible in mello and i’m glad they’re gone there, mgp has so many good songs and they deserve a better format